Post by jadedsage on Feb 9, 2004 22:05:15 GMT -5
The message below, an open letter from Robert Redford about the awful
consequences if Congress passes the Bush-Cheney energy bill, was sent to you
by Marilyn Velez from www.savebiogems.org
Dear Friend,
Over the next few weeks, President Bush and his congressional allies will
try once again to ram their disastrous energy bill through the U.S. Senate.
They fell only two votes short in November and they've vowed to make passage
of the bill their top priority now that Congress has returned from recess.
This bill may be the worst piece of legislation you and I will see in our
lifetimes. It would pick your pocket, despoil your natural heritage,
endanger your family's health and smother your hope for a more secure energy
future. We ignore this bill at our own peril.
Let me tell you our simple plan for thwarting this shameless attack on our
environment and pocketbooks. If millions of Americans each took one minute
to protest this bill, it would cause every senator who is tempted to vote
for it to think twice about doing so.
You can make this happen within the next few hours by doing two things:
First, go to www.savebiogems.org/takeaction.asp and send your two
senators an email or fax, telling them to vote against this pro-polluter
energy bill.
Then, forward my email to at least four of your friends, family members or
colleagues.
I am emailing this message to 500,000 BioGems Defenders and other NRDC
activists. If each one forwards this message to just four more people, we
will generate a national tidal wave of opposition before this day is over.
And that won't be a moment too soon. This disgraceful bill would pick our
pockets to hand out billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies to the oil,
coal and nuclear industries. That's their long-awaited reward for making
big-time contributions to the Bush-Cheney campaign. They profit while the
rest of us pay the price -- in tax dollars and environmental degradation.
This bill gives the energy giants a free pass to drill their way through our
last wild places, burn more dirty coal, build a new generation of risky
nuclear power plants and dramatically increase air pollution that would
sicken the vulnerable -- especially children and seniors -- for decades to
come.
It would establish oil and gas development as the dominant use of our
federal public lands, open national parks to the construction of electricity
transmission lines, exempt polluters from core provisions of our clean air
and water laws and waive liability for the producers of the toxic gasoline
additive MTBE -- even though it has contaminated at least 1,500 public water
supplies in all 50 American states.
You'd be hard-pressed to come up with a more backward-looking, wasteful and
self-defeating energy "plan" than this one. At a time when the federal
deficit is soaring and we're going to war in the Persian Gulf oilfields, the
White House wants to stick us with the tab for prolonging our destructive
dependence on fossil fuels, foreign oil and dangerous nuclear technology.
This is not a national energy policy. This is corporate welfare, pure and
simple. Estimates of the bill's corporate tax breaks range from $23 billion
to well over $100 billion with loan guarantees included. No surprise there.
Big energy companies cooked up this raid on the federal treasury during
hundreds of secret meetings with Vice President Cheney's energy task force
and their allies on Capitol Hill.
It's one thing to gouge taxpayers. But to claim this rip-off is in the
national interest, as the White House would have us believe, is a slap in
the face to every working American.
Poll after poll shows that the vast majority of voters -- of both parties --
understand that we simply must reduce our out-of-control appetite for fossil
fuels if we ever are to secure energy independence. That means turning
American rooftops into the Persian Gulf of solar energy. It means producing
cars that get 40 miles per gallon. It means constructing efficient buildings
that use half the energy of the average American office without sacrificing
comfort.
Making this transformation to a super-efficient, low-pollution economy would
save consumers upwards of a trillion dollars, spare our last wild places
from destruction, improve our health, slow global warming and reduce our
dependence on undemocratic regimes overseas. It's a no-brainer to anyone
living outside the White House.
But unless millions of Americans speak out right now, the enactment of the
president's energy bill will doom us to an apocalyptic future of blighted
wilderness, poisonous air pollution, devastating climate change and endless
wars over fossil fuels.
Please make your voice heard. Go to
www.savebiogems.org/takeaction.asp and tell your senators to obey the
will of the American people, *not* the dictates of giant energy
corporations! Call on Congress to create a sustainable and affordable energy
path.
And please be sure to forward this message to at least four other people.
Believe me, millions of Americans are just waiting for a simple way to stop
this madness and lend their support to a sane and hopeful energy future.
Sincerely yours,
Robert Redford
Board of Trustees
Natural Resources Defense Council
. . .
BioGems: Saving Endangered Wild Places
A project of the Natural Resources Defense Council
www.savebiogems.org
consequences if Congress passes the Bush-Cheney energy bill, was sent to you
by Marilyn Velez from www.savebiogems.org
Dear Friend,
Over the next few weeks, President Bush and his congressional allies will
try once again to ram their disastrous energy bill through the U.S. Senate.
They fell only two votes short in November and they've vowed to make passage
of the bill their top priority now that Congress has returned from recess.
This bill may be the worst piece of legislation you and I will see in our
lifetimes. It would pick your pocket, despoil your natural heritage,
endanger your family's health and smother your hope for a more secure energy
future. We ignore this bill at our own peril.
Let me tell you our simple plan for thwarting this shameless attack on our
environment and pocketbooks. If millions of Americans each took one minute
to protest this bill, it would cause every senator who is tempted to vote
for it to think twice about doing so.
You can make this happen within the next few hours by doing two things:
First, go to www.savebiogems.org/takeaction.asp and send your two
senators an email or fax, telling them to vote against this pro-polluter
energy bill.
Then, forward my email to at least four of your friends, family members or
colleagues.
I am emailing this message to 500,000 BioGems Defenders and other NRDC
activists. If each one forwards this message to just four more people, we
will generate a national tidal wave of opposition before this day is over.
And that won't be a moment too soon. This disgraceful bill would pick our
pockets to hand out billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies to the oil,
coal and nuclear industries. That's their long-awaited reward for making
big-time contributions to the Bush-Cheney campaign. They profit while the
rest of us pay the price -- in tax dollars and environmental degradation.
This bill gives the energy giants a free pass to drill their way through our
last wild places, burn more dirty coal, build a new generation of risky
nuclear power plants and dramatically increase air pollution that would
sicken the vulnerable -- especially children and seniors -- for decades to
come.
It would establish oil and gas development as the dominant use of our
federal public lands, open national parks to the construction of electricity
transmission lines, exempt polluters from core provisions of our clean air
and water laws and waive liability for the producers of the toxic gasoline
additive MTBE -- even though it has contaminated at least 1,500 public water
supplies in all 50 American states.
You'd be hard-pressed to come up with a more backward-looking, wasteful and
self-defeating energy "plan" than this one. At a time when the federal
deficit is soaring and we're going to war in the Persian Gulf oilfields, the
White House wants to stick us with the tab for prolonging our destructive
dependence on fossil fuels, foreign oil and dangerous nuclear technology.
This is not a national energy policy. This is corporate welfare, pure and
simple. Estimates of the bill's corporate tax breaks range from $23 billion
to well over $100 billion with loan guarantees included. No surprise there.
Big energy companies cooked up this raid on the federal treasury during
hundreds of secret meetings with Vice President Cheney's energy task force
and their allies on Capitol Hill.
It's one thing to gouge taxpayers. But to claim this rip-off is in the
national interest, as the White House would have us believe, is a slap in
the face to every working American.
Poll after poll shows that the vast majority of voters -- of both parties --
understand that we simply must reduce our out-of-control appetite for fossil
fuels if we ever are to secure energy independence. That means turning
American rooftops into the Persian Gulf of solar energy. It means producing
cars that get 40 miles per gallon. It means constructing efficient buildings
that use half the energy of the average American office without sacrificing
comfort.
Making this transformation to a super-efficient, low-pollution economy would
save consumers upwards of a trillion dollars, spare our last wild places
from destruction, improve our health, slow global warming and reduce our
dependence on undemocratic regimes overseas. It's a no-brainer to anyone
living outside the White House.
But unless millions of Americans speak out right now, the enactment of the
president's energy bill will doom us to an apocalyptic future of blighted
wilderness, poisonous air pollution, devastating climate change and endless
wars over fossil fuels.
Please make your voice heard. Go to
www.savebiogems.org/takeaction.asp and tell your senators to obey the
will of the American people, *not* the dictates of giant energy
corporations! Call on Congress to create a sustainable and affordable energy
path.
And please be sure to forward this message to at least four other people.
Believe me, millions of Americans are just waiting for a simple way to stop
this madness and lend their support to a sane and hopeful energy future.
Sincerely yours,
Robert Redford
Board of Trustees
Natural Resources Defense Council
. . .
BioGems: Saving Endangered Wild Places
A project of the Natural Resources Defense Council
www.savebiogems.org
